In which my pantry wasn't large enough to house my m&m's obsession so we built a new one

No, just kidding. For real though, we already had a pretty great, large pantry in the kitchen. The only problem with it was that Chad loathed the whole thing. He didn't like how deep it was (we couldn't see what we actually had or didn't have), he didn't like the width of the shelves, he didn't really like ANYTHING about it. In fact, he wants to demo that there built-in pantry below on the left hand side.

I, however, kind of liked the old pantry! I will give it to him though: we really couldn't see what we had or didn't have, making shopping trips pretty annoying. Several times we would over-buy or under, always resulting in more cash spent than desired and multiple trips to the store.

Up there on the right was our coat closet! After a particularly organize-driven weekend of getting our house in order, we decided to just go for it and make that space the new pantry. If one was looking for a problem with the whole thing though, it could be that it's a bit of a hike from the cooking spaces, and also that we've pretty much displaced the items that were in there (vacuum, broom, swiffer, dog food and other cleaning products). We're still trying to figure out a space for those things at the moment.

But anyhoo! First Chad put up 4-shelves worth of cleats with some scrap wood from the garage. Hello, FREE!

Then the two of us actually PLANNED the whole thing out - I know, who are we? I told him what I really wanted out of a pantry (some serious organization. How many times do you think I can say the word "organization" in one post?). This included step-up type shelves for spices and cans, along with several glass and plastic organizers - I wanted this thing to be LEGIT.

Once the raw cleats and plywood were installed, I actually loaded up all of our pantry goods in there. That's something I've noticed that I do with each project like this - before it's done, I have to see how we'll actually USE the space. It just makes me feel good! So after using the new pantry in it's raw form for a few days, I realized that the unsanded corners were death traps - I was convinced that one of the kids would rush in there and poke their eyeball out with those razor sharp corners and edges - FREAKY!

So I quickly sanded them and then got to painting (which took me 10 years longer than expected - oh DIY, you tricky little thing you).

Now I'm obsessed with it! And really don't mind the longer walk to the new space. This really was Phase 1 of what we'll eventually be doing to our kitchen. Moving all of our pantry goods allowed us to use the old pantry for storage which will lead to the open shelving we're planning on doing. AWESOME.

So woohoooooo!!! Oh yeah! And take a look at those cool boxes where the kids snacks are. Chad made those cool freakin' things! I love him and his skills!

Nicole here! Welcome to my little space where I record our projects, home renovations and design dabbles. I'm a coffee psycho, miter saw enthusiast, home inspiration featurer and oh yeah! A wife, mama to three humans and one big doggy. Jesus is our homeboy, so with those points as priorities, it's a pretty sweet life over here! Stay a bit!

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